It was a glorious morning this morning with barely a hint of cloud in the sky. Mike had had a successful evening with several hours of DIAL LIDAR measurements, and we were very hopeful as we headed up to the lab. If only the sun rose a little earlier! By the time 10:26am (sunrise) rolled around, the clouds were back. Enough light peered through the murk for us to fiddle with the PARIS pick-off mirror, but it wasn’t enough for the tracker to track or the FTS’s to detect. So it was another day of cell measurements for those of us in the FTS lab. In the UV-lab, things went along much as normal for SAOZ, the UT-GBS and SPS/MAESTRO instruments. Clive worked on the tracker that he has been designing for several of the CANDAC instruments, and set it up in the window of the lab. It seemed to follow what may have been the location of the sun (it’s hard to tell through the clouds) which was good news, though there are definitely still a few hiccups that need to be resolved.
The plane today also bought a new addition to the science presence here on station. Graeme Nott arrived from Dalhousie University to work on a new Rayleigh-Mie-Raman (MRM) LIDAR for 0PAL (the zero altitude science lab located by the weather station).
In science news, we’ve been following the daily ozone measurements with interest. The mean Arctic stratospheric temperatures this year are colder than average, and in places, sufficiently low for polar stratospheric cloud formation, which is a key ingredient for ozone loss. Depending on the dynamics of the polar vortex over the next few weeks, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some significant ozone depletion over the Arctic this year. Locally over the last few days, however, we have seen the complete opposite as a large low pressure system accompanied by very high amounts of ozone (affectionately termed the “ozone mountain” by Clive) moves over Eureka. To see recent ozone maps, follow the links from the Experimental Studies at Environment Canada’s website at http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/e/index.htm
Bec